The first regular-season AP Top 25 is typically an overhaul from the preseason poll as voters get a better sense how good teams might actually be.
This season certainly is no different.
Houston was No. 1 in the poll released Monday, swapping spots with Purdue by earning three more points overall. The Cougars received 18 first-place votes from a 61-person media panel and Purdue had 36, with four other teams also getting at least one.
UConn, Duke, and Arizona round out the top five in a chaotic poll that saw only four teams hold their positions from the preseason poll, yet no one moved in or out of the poll.
Houston, which lost to Florida in last spring’s national championship game, is No. 1 for the first time since a three-week stint in 2024.
The Boilermakers were ranked No. 1 in the preseason poll for the first time in program history and opened the season with a pair of wins. Purdue had a hard time shaking Oakland in an 87-77 win Friday and some Top 25 voters dropped the Boilermakers out of the top five on their ballots.
“Yeah, I mean, we just beat Oakland by 10 points. Credit to them, they played a great game,” Purdue guard Fletcher Loyer said. “But if we’re supposed to be the No. 1 team in the country, we’ve got to be better than that, and it starts at the defensive end.”
Houston had no trouble in its first two games, blowing out Lehigh and Towson by an average of 18 points.
Rising and falling
Arizona moved up eight places from No. 13 after an impressive win over reigning champion and then-No. 3 Florida in Las Vegas. No. 8 Alabama moved up seven places following Saturday’s 103-96 win over then-No. 5 St. John’s at Madison Square Garden.
No. 18 North Carolina also climbed seven spots after beating then-No. 19 Kansas and No. 17 Michigan State gained five places with its 69-66 win over then-No. 14 Arkansas.
The losses by Florida, St. John’s and Kansas sent all three tumbling. The Gators lost seven places (to No. 10), the Red Storm dropped eight (No. 13) and the Jayhawks fell six (No. 25).
Conference watch
The Southeastern Conference, Big Ten and Big 12 each had six ranked teams to make up 72% of the field. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East were next with three each, while the West Coast Conference had one with No. 19 Gonzaga. The Big 12 and SEC each have three top-10 teams.
Watch list
Indiana coach Darian DeVries has a history of producing quick turnarounds at previous stops and is hoping to pull another one off in his first season in Bloomington. The Hoosiers looked good in the first week of the season, blowing out Alabama A&M and Marquette to inch closer to being ranked. Indiana has two games that won’t exactly move the needle — against Milwaukee and Incarnate Word — but could find itself ranked if the early-season jumbling continues.
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